Thursday, May 24, 2012

I love what spring stands for: summer is coming. But I find that the actual season is a little
harder to take. Sure, all that new
growth is beautiful and filled with promise, but it seems to take months of
dreary brown, brown, brown before the green finally arrives and Calgary starts to freshen
up. And once spring arrives, my
allergies kick in and I'm sneezing , snivelling and dabbing my watering eyes
constantly.

Which leads me to The Art of Miss Chew by
Patricia Polacco. Talk about allergies
kicking in big time. I was certainly
suffering a very bad case of snivelling and watery eyes as I finished this
gorgeous book about a young Patricia being encouraged to discover her artistic
talents with the help of fine, fine teachers.
A struggling student, young Patricia needed extra time to successfully
complete written exams due to reading difficulties. Yet when it came to art, she excelled at
‘seeing’ or reading her subjects. She
credits Violet Chew, her art teacher, for setting her on her life’s path.

The illustrations are done in the author/illustrator’s
typical style of black and white, coloured pencils and markers. I said gorgeous once already, right? I think this is my favourite book of Patricia
Polocco’s, which is saying a lot as most of her books induce ‘allergy’ attacks.

This also ties into an interesting DVD I recently watched, titled
Listen
To This (371.7 Lis 2010 DVD). It’s about a musician, Thompson T.
Egbo-Egbo, establishing a music program in inner city Toronto as a way to encourage elementary
students to tap into their creative abilities, develop self-esteem, deal with
life’s issues and, perhaps, discover their own life’s path.

Called Evolving Through the Arts, his program
gives these students the opportunity to write songs, express thoughts and
feelings about everyday life (including some pretty traumatic events like
shootings and rape), sing and perform for peers and family. It was inspiring to watch as Greg Stokes, a DJ, music producer and mentor in the program, get a grade 4 girl
named Jasmine, who excels at writing lyrics and shyly sings her songs (a true
poet), to finally recognize herself as an artist. Talk about defining moments.

Whether it’s the visual arts, music or any other artistic
form, art provides avenues for self-expression and creativity that potentially
have the power to change lives. In
spring time, new growth embodies the promise of things to come. So too do young people finding their way with
the help of caring adults and creative opportunities.

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About Me

I am the reference coordinator at The Doucette Library of Teaching Resources, a curriculum library in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary.
I love connecting education students and teachers with engaging and exciting resources for classroom teaching. I believe that resources that get me excited (or those that get you excited) are the ones with the best potential to get kids interested in learning about - well, everything. Finding those books that connect to the real world are the ones I enjoy promoting the most.